Hurricane warning lends only short-term support to oil prices, weak China data weigh

Oil prices are still on the defensive. Brent has fallen this morning to $46 per barrel, its lowest level since mid-January. 

WTI is still holding its own just above the 6½-year low of $40.2 per barrel it recorded yesterday. Brent is facing its seventh weekly decline in the past eight weeks, while WTI is even set to post its eighth consecutive weekly decline - the longest series of weekly losses in 29 years.

A hurricane warning lent brief support yesterday, though this did not last long. According to the US National Hurricane Center, this season's first hurricane has formed in the Atlantic to the east of the Caribbean. 

"It is not yet possible to say whether it will set course for the Gulf of Mexico, however, and thus pose a risk to oil and gas production there", says Commerzbank.